


Natural Selection

by JLencre



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire (Teen Wolf), M/M, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29973015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JLencre/pseuds/JLencre
Summary: Every six months, the humans gather at the clearing for just the chance to be chosen by the Hale Pack. Peter only hoped this winter's candidates weren't as pathetic as last summer's.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 1
Kudos: 28





	Natural Selection

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Greeneyesblue, for making sure this made sense and didn't end up in a weird trope I didn't mean to write.

Peter loped through the forest beside his alpha and sister. Laura was on Talia's right, but she remained half a step behind, her head just even with Talia’s shoulders. The other pack members who’d been chosen to come to the gathering ran in evenly spaced arcs behind the three, watchful and silent on their paws by nature, despite being roughly the size of horses. It didn’t hurt that the ground had been covered with a fresh layer of powdery snow during the night.

They moved swiftly toward the clearing at the edge of the Hale Pack territory. Or it might be more accurate to say at the edge of the _nemeton’s_ territory; territory it had claimed and held since before the Great War. The Hale Pack, whose ancestors and lived, bled, and died on the lands from the beginning, were the only pack the nemeton permitted to stay within its claimed borders. One might even say the Hale Pack belonged to the nemeton as much as the land did. More than one rogue pack, not to mention various groups of hunters throughout the years, had found out that little fact… right before they’d been skewered by tree branches, pinned to the ground, and the earth itself opened to consume them.

The nemeton protected anything and anyone it claimed within its borders whether flora, fauna, human, or supernatural being. People might be deceived by someone who did and said all the right things, but the nemeton never would be. Needless to say, Hale Pack lands and the town not far from them—Beacon Hills—were popular places to live for the supernatural and natural people alike. What’s more, living in Beacon Hills might grant a person a chance at being accepted into the illustrious Hale Pack.

That chance was the reason Peter, Talia, and a dozen pack members were heading toward the clearing just on the edge of the sheltered lands. Peter only hoped this winter's candidates weren't as pathetic as last summer's. The choosing was one way the Hale Pack gained new bloodlines and kept their pack healthy, but none of the humans had appealed in the least last summer. Wolves and humans had all gone home disappointed.

Peter’s hearing was sharper than most. He’d held an alpha spark and retained many of the alpha features, like sharper senses and a larger form. He could hear the anxious murmurs of conversation long before the clearing was within sight. A single voice drew his attention, though he couldn’t say why. It wasn’t particularly high or low, melodious or harsh. It sounded like a younger, adult male, but that was all Peter could determine about it. Oddly, it seemed to belong to someone who didn’t want to be part of the pack. 

“It doesn’t matter, Dad,” the young man said stubbornly. “Even if they did choose me, I’d refuse to go.”

“You’d do no such thing!” the person Peter could only assume was the young man’s father snapped back. His words were slightly slurred, as though he'd been injured. “If you get the chance, you’ll take it. That’s all there is to it! We’re _lucky_ we got accepted into Beacon Hills, especially with what happened. I’m practically useless, and your ADHD hasn’t made anything easier for you. Besides, you spent your last few months of high school taking care of me after I got shot. You gave up your scholarship to that big school out East, and I know you wanted to go."

“I never said I—!”

“Don’t bullshit me, kid. Winning the lottery to get us here with the others for this choosing was a miracle. If you get chosen, you’re _not_ going to waste it. I don’t want to hear another word about it!”

“I’m not leaving y—”

“As if any of the wolves will want your scrawny ass, Stilinski,” another male voice sneered. “You and your dad are both here because you won fate’s pity vote. It’s not like either of you have a chance when there are people who aren’t cripples or losers.”

The second young man’s arrogant, condescending tone made Peter’s lips curl upward in a soundless snarl. He wanted to sink his fangs in and _rip_ until that voice was silenced forever.

“Fuck you, Jackson!”

“Stiles! That’s enough.” More quietly, the father added, “Don’t get into it with that jerk again, kiddo. It’s not worth it.”

“But Dad, I—”

A low growl from Talia and a nudge through the pack bond startled Peter. He shook his head as if shaking off his sister’s curiosity along with the humans’ conversation. If they hadn’t been so close to the gathering, Talia might have stopped them to demand what Peter had sensed and reacted to.

Talia hadn’t always been so attentive to what she thought of as Peter’s overly suspicious nature. Then a small but fanatic subset of hunters had infiltrated Beacon Hills and nearly killed Talia herself. They had succeeded in killing four of the wolves she’d brought with her to that year’s choosing and injured the rest, including Peter.

Only tricking Gerard Argent and his team of utterly mad humans across the ward line had ended the fight. The nemeton had dragged them below the earth bit by bit, one body part at a time. The screams had gone on for hours. Peter privately thought the nemeton had been expressing its fury in brutal, bloody fashion. If, once Peter had recovered from being doused with gasoline and set on fire, he’d seen to it that the ground directly beneath the enormous tree’s canopy received two inches of the richest compost and another four inches of mulch… Well, that was nobody’s business but his and the nemeton’s, and he wasn’t about to tell.

The pack slowed just before reaching the clearing.

“They’re here!” some idiot human shouted needlessly as the wolves slowed and paced regally forward across their half of the clearing, stopping about a yard short of the ward line. The line itself was invisible, except when the light hit it just right. Then it seemed to shimmer very faintly. Natural humans couldn’t see the line no matter how hard they tried, but those with supernatural blood could, even if it was just out of the corner of their eye most of the time. After the incident with Argent, Talia had stopped harping about how they should put up some kind of line of demarcation. Not knowing exactly where the boundary lay had saved more than one wolf that day.

Talia took one more step, shifting as she did and finishing the step seamlessly on two legs. The humans murmured their amazement and awe, as usual. Peter sneezed his annoyance while in wolf form, then shifted silently to two legs, though he kept his beta features. A few people looked at him and dropped their gazes in deference when he met their eyes, but most of the attention was still on Talia as the alpha. Peter approved. If they were looking at her, that gave him time to scan the crowd for threats. At least there wasn’t any squawking or horrified screeching the past few years. Humans were ridiculous about nudity, and there had been screeching plus parents covering their children’s eyes every season until Deaton had finally figured out the spell that let them shift with their clothes.

Talia began her biannual speech about what pack meant and what it would mean to be chosen. Peter tuned her out. He’d heard it more than enough times, especially since he’d been the one to help her write it years ago. Even as a child, he’d used words as communication and weapon both.

Peter let his senses travel over the humans. The crowd looked the same as it usually did: a mess of humans who were desperate, arrogant, and everything in between. They were also smelly. No matter how many years Peter went along for choosing duty, he never got over how many chemicals the humans doused themselves with. From their clothes to their skin and hair, they reeked of unnatural combinations of perfumes and dyes that put off Peter’s wolf more and more every time he had to deal with them. The only one who didn’t…

Peter drew in a subtle breath and traced the scent of clean sweat, fried foods, and something he couldn’t quite discern. Whatever it was, it made him think of jumping into a cold stream on a blisteringly hot day, curling up with a blanket and his favorite book on a cold night, running through the forest with the full moon shining on his dark fur. The scent made his fangs drop and his mouth water. He wanted to bite, claim, and keep the source of the scent hidden within his den. It smelled like _mate_.

There! Toward the back on the same side stood a young man. He was tall and lanky with a coltish look that suggested he hadn’t quite finished growing into his limbs, indicating he was late teens or early twenties. His dark hair was a mess, sticking up all over as though he’d run his hands through it multiple times, and his golden brown eyes were fixed on Talia with an odd mix of hope and despair, longing and fear.

Beside him, an older man sat in a wheelchair, his right arm in a sling bound to his chest. His face looked wrong in a way that perplexed Peter until he remembered the human medical texts he’d read about something called a stroke. The man had probably lost the use of his entire right side.

Talia finished her speech, and the younger man turned to the elder.

“We should go.”

He shook his head. “Hold tight, Stiles. Let’s at least see how this shakes out.”

Peter’s breath caught in his chest. These were the voices he’d fixated on earlier. It made sense now.

“Brother,” Talia’s voice interrupted his thoughts yet again. “As you generously passed the right of first choice to your packmate again last season, I offer you the same this season. Will you accept?”

Every year from the time he’d become Talia’s enforcer, Peter had been offered and had passed on the right of first choice. Most of the pack assumed Peter despised humans in general, and it was obvious Talia expected him to pass again this year. Talia knew it, as did their pack. Even the humans knew the Hale enforcer never chose.

Talia had already turned toward the next wolf in line when Peter calmly stated, “I will,” and stepped toward the barrier.

Humans and werewolves alike froze, shocked silent until Talia closed her dropped jaw and inclined her head graciously.

“Ethan and Aiden will guard your back.”

The twin wolves needed no further prompting to follow Peter across the barrier to the human side, staying in their wolf forms. Peter could feel their amusement through the pack bond as humans skittered back from the trio as they passed by.

Abused by their former pack, the twins easily could’ve grown into monsters had their pack not traveled a bit too close to the Hale Pack lands. Out on patrol that day, Peter had observed, then had taken exception to the twins' treatment. Somehow, their disgraceful alpha had managed to trip and fall onto Peter’s fangs. These things happened sometimes, so what could he do but claim the twins and banish their former pack? Of course, he’d passed the alpha spark on to Talia as soon as he’d gotten back, though he’d remained stuck with the nearly feral boys and their rather _enthusiastic_ loyalty. Even now, years later, Ethan and Aiden considered themselves Peter’s betas more than Talia’s. No doubt they’d have followed him into the human part of the clearing even if Talia hadn’t ordered it.

Peter didn’t bother pretending he was considering anyone except his intended mate. He caught the young man’s gaze and held it as he strode toward him. Bronze eyes widened in disbelief but refused to look away. Something inside Peter’s soul rumbled, pleased by the indication that his mate was made of sterner stuff than most humans.

Coming to a stop just in front of the young man and his father, Peter finished the shift to human form and fairly purred, “You must be Stiles.”

Stiles’ throat clicked as he swallowed dryly, otherwise silent and smelling of shock as he stared at Peter. Ethan and Aiden growled and showed their fangs, forcing the other humans back before taking up guardian positions and leaving Peter, Stiles, and Stiles’ father with a bit more room.

“Uh—yes?” Stiles managed to choke out after his father nudged his leg.

Peter’s smile widened. From the way Stiles’ heart was racing, it was more serial killer than potential lover, as Laura would say. Ah, well. He was confident fate hadn’t given him a timid mate. 

“I’m Peter Hale, beta and chief enforcer to Alpha Talia Hale,” Peter said formally. “I hereby offer you a place among the Hale Pack and within my den as my mate. What say you?”

Peter’s sharp ears caught even Talia’s quickly drawn in breath at that. It was rare for a wolf to choose a mate from among another species, especially humans. More often, werewolves chose mates from among turned humans. The last time a wolf had chosen a human had been when Peter and Talia’s great-grandmother had sought out their great-grandfather.

“Your—your _mate_? I didn’t think wolves and humans—I mean, don’t you already have—shouldn’t you want—”

“ _Stiles!_ ” the older man hissed, making Stiles shut his mouth with an audible snap.

Stiles dropped his gaze and shoved both hands through his already-messy hair. His scent soured with distress as he looked to his father.

“I—”

“He accepts,” Stiles' father said firmly, his functioning arm grabbing his son’s wrist.

Stiles whipped his head around to protest, “Dad!”

“Stiles!”

The father’s blue gaze met his son’s bronze unflinchingly. An entire conversation passed silently between them, and the distressed scent increased from both of them this time, though the father’s was nearly overpowered by the scent of healing wounds and illness.

Well, that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all. Stiles and his father didn’t want to be separated, but Peter couldn’t choose a mate _and_ a new pack member. What he could do was create a loophole.

“Stiles,” Peter murmured, getting the young man’s attention. “If you agree, I want to make you mine today. Accept the mating bite here and now.”

Stiles blinked in bewilderment. “What? Why?”

“Stiles!”

“No, it’s alright. Perfectly reasonable question. The truth is I’ve waited a very, very long time for you—my entire life, in fact. Now that I have you here in front of me, I don’t want to wait as long as it will take to get home. I want my mark on your skin, our bond in place, long before my packmates see you and try to woo you away from me.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. “Possessive much?”

“Very,” Peter agreed easily, smirking again.

He ignored Talia’s disapproval, which he could feel through the pack bond. He knew what he was doing. Now that he was close, there was something else in Stiles’ scent, something Peter had never expected. If he played his cards right, Stiles’ addition would benefit Peter and the pack as a whole.

“If being pack and being mine isn’t incentive enough, let me give you something more. Bond with me here and now, and I’ll grant you a boon.”

Stiles nervous twitches abruptly stilled. “A boon?”

“A marker, if you will, a favor you can ask of me.”

“I know what a boon is,” he snapped. “What sort of boon?”

Peter shrugged carelessly. “Whatever you wish.”

If anything, Stiles looked more skeptical.

“Anything,” he repeated.

“Well, anything within my power to grant you,” Peter clarified, “or find someone else who can grant you. I’m a werewolf, not a djinn. I can’t turn into a prince with a castle and a magic carpet.”

Stiles snorted and rolled his eyes. “How long do I have to wait to call in my favor? A month? A year?”

Peter huffed a laugh. “Certainly not. A boon doesn’t have a time constraint.”

“So I could ask for anything as soon as I want—today, even?”

Peter smirked. “You may call it in the moment our bond is in place, if you like.”

Something flared in Stiles’ eyes, and the sour scent began to fade and be replaced by a softer, sweeter smell Peter couldn’t quite put his finger on. He suspected it was a mix of wariness and hope.

Stiles took a deep breath and straightened his spine. “Yeah, okay.”

Peter tamped down on the surge of victory. The bond wasn’t set yet.

He pressed, “You agree to be my mate, to join the Hale Pack as my mate alone?”

“Yes,” Stiles said with a single, decisive nod. “Do I have to do anything? I mean now?”

Peter held out one hand, palm up and waited until Stiles placed his own in it. He drew Stiles carefully toward him, taking a single step in to meet him.

Leaning in, he murmured, “Yes, darling. When I bite you, you need to focus on wanting to be pack, wanting to be _mine_. Feel me and our bond first. It’ll wrap around you like a warm blanket.” Peter ignored the confusion he was getting from Talia and the twins. They could hear him, and they knew there was no reason to expect a baseline human would feel much of anything. “When that happens, you’ll be mine.”

Stiles’ eyes narrowed shrewdly. “And you’re mine, right?”

Peter smirked at the sign that his mate was just as possessive as a wolf would be. “Of course. That is the nature of wolf mates. Then you’ll feel the pack bonds welcome you, the Alpha first, of course.”

“What if I don’t want to be a werewolf?”

“Now, or ever?”

“I don’t know. Now for sure.”

“That’s fine, though if you are ever injured or ill to the point where only the bite could save you, I will find a way to make it happen whether or not you want it. Fair warning.”

Stiles stared silently into Peter’s eyes as if weighing the truth of his words. Finally, he answered, “I can live with that. So are we going to do this thing, or what?”

Peter grinned. Such a fierce mate he’d found.

Peter eased his mate into his arms, one hand on the back of his neck and the other slipping beneath the red hoodie to rest at the small of his back so he could take any pain there might be. Stiles hands landed on his shoulders, and his heart rate took off again.

“Easy, sweetheart. Tilt your head to the side. That’s it,” Peter crooned. “You’re going to be alright. Actually, you’re going to be much more than alright: you’re going to be _magnificent_.”

He kissed the join of Stiles’ neck and shoulder, then allowed his wolf to come forward. In beta shift, Peter cut his own tongue on a fang, then bit down, mixing his blood with his mate’s.

Stiles gasped, jerked, then went still when Peter started drawing the pain. He held on even though he was concerned that it wasn’t working as quickly as he’d hoped. A few, nerve-wracking seconds passed when, suddenly, Stiles gasped again, ending the sound with a breathless little, “oh!”

The mate bond slammed into place between them with the force of a runaway tank. Peter closed his eyes against the dizzying sensation. He knew he needed to focus on getting his fangs out of his mate and keeping upright. Stiles’ magical strength was beyond Peter’s wildest expectation.

“There, it's done,” he murmured, licking blood from the bite. “Feel the bond, Stiles. It’s there between us now, and your bite will heal and scar any second.”

Stiles trembled silently against him. Before Peter’s eyes, the deep bite he’d left healed and flattened into a silvery scar that looked decades old. It was all he could do not to throw his head back and howl in victory.

Peter drew back just enough to cup the back of Stiles’ head and look into his face. His eyes were glazed, his breath still coming in short pants.

“Easy, darling,” he murmured softly.

He sent a gentle burst of adoration through the bond, making Stiles tremble harder. A human’s brain and nervous system just wasn’t set up to handle that kind of input. Good thing Stiles wasn’t human… at least, not entirely.

Stiles licked his lips, still dazed but color beginning to return to his face. It was clear he was feeling the pack when he whispered, “There are so many.”

“I know. Just focus on me. Our bond will always be the strongest, darling. You can use it to shield you from the others. Take your time, and everything will be alright.”

Stiles shuddered, then blinked rapidly, and Peter could tell he’d succeeded in gaining some distance.

“Wow,” Stiles murmured, looking into Peter’s human face.

Peter grinned, finally permitting himself to feel the surge of triumph. He must have projected into the pack bond more than he’d intended: the entire pack threw their heads back and howled in victory. He had a feeling even the wolves back home were doing the same, though they wouldn’t know why. Derek’s mate especially was never going to let Peter live down his loss of control.

“Shall we go home?” Peter asked once the echoes had faded, and the clearing was quiet again.

Stiles blinked rapidly. His eyes narrowed and went rigid in Peter’s arms, though he didn’t push him away.

“No! I’m claiming my boon.”

Having expected no less, Peter merely nodded and brushed his knuckles over Stiles’ flushed cheek. “Certainly.”

Stiles’ fingers dug into Peter’s shoulders, but he didn’t think his mate knew he was doing it.

“My dad. I want him to come with us, and I want him to get the bite.”

“I can’t do the latter, but…” Without breaking eye contact, Peter said more loudly, “Alpha, my mate has chosen a boon I cannot fulfill on my own. I must ask your help. My mate and I wish for my father-in-law to be one of us.”

Peter didn’t need to see Talia to know she was smiling.

“You’ve never asked me to give the gift of the bite to anyone, Peter. I’m more than happy to do so now, especially to bring your mate’s father into the pack. Aiden, Ethan, see our new packmates to this side of the ward line, then take Boyd and Ennis into town and retrieve any of their possessions they might have left behind. I’m certain Mayor Whittemore would be willing to show you where Stiles and—I’m sorry. I don’t believe I heard your name.”

“Oh, uh, it’s Noah. Noah Stilinski,” he replied shakily.

Peter could see him wipe at his eyes with his good hand, then decide he was better off just hanging onto Ethan’s shoulder, even if neither Ethan nor Aiden had chosen to wear clothing under their fur. Peter sighed quietly.

“Damn, you boys are strong,” Noah muttered, refusing to look at the other humans staring at him with both disbelief and envy.

The twins had shifted to beta form and had chosen to lift the man, wheelchair and all, past the other humans and into the pack side of the clearing. They set him down gently, then shifted back to wolves, which was their preferred form.

“Betas, see to it that the Stilinskis’ things are brought to them. We’ll meet you at home,” Talia ordered, then turned back to the human crowd to address them and invite them to return in six months’ time.

Stiles eagerly took a step and would’ve fallen on his face if Peter hadn’t been there. He swept his mate up in a bridal carry, despite Stiles’ protests.

“Forming the bond took a lot out of you. Just rest and let me take care of you.”

Still grumbling, Stiles put his arms around Peter’s neck and let his head drop to rest on his shoulder.

Peter smirked at his mate’s show of trust and continued walking, nodding respectfully at Noah, where one of the other pack members had helped him onto Laura’s back and wrapped him with thick blankets they’d brought for whomever they ended up choosing. Isaac approached Peter with another blanket, and he allowed the beta to tuck it carefully around his dozing mate, only choking on a growl once.

“P’ssive b’st’d,” Stiles slurred, pressing his cold nose against Peter’s neck. Now that he wasn’t worried about his father, exhaustion had set in from the complex magic he’d unknowingly woven.

Peter snorted. “We’re well-matched in that, I think.”

Stiles harrumphed but didn’t disagree.

They walked for almost a mile before Talia had satisfied her need to check on everyone and was back by Peter’s side, surprisingly, still in human form.

“A Spark,” she murmured, shooting him a speculative look. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t.”

At Talia’s frank disbelief, he chuckled. “Truly, sister. I heard him and his father talking before we arrived. Then I saw him, scented him, and knew he was my mate. I suppose that distraction accounts for how long it took to me to realize the strange nuance in his scent was because of his spark. Even without that… well, I never would have let him go without a fight.”

“So you figured out a way to manipulate the situation to get what you wanted. I should’ve guessed,” she said with a light laugh. “I’m glad you found a way to make certain he got what he needed as well.”

Peter just smiled. It wasn’t as if he would’ve done anything else. He was a possessive werewolf, not a cruel one.

After another speculative glance, Talia said, “Once he’s trained, he’ll be a powerful emissary. I think perhaps it’s time you took back one of the alpha sparks you’ve won through the years. The pack and territory are large enough to split, and I know of at least four betas who’ll go with you. Five if you include your mate’s father.”

Peter’s jaw dropped. He would’ve tripped had Talia not been there to steady him.

“Just think about it,” she said, her laughter turning to amused chuffs as she shifted to her wolf form and loped ahead.

And wasn’t that just like an older sister? Peter had done all the work that day, and Talia still got the last laugh. Looking at his mate, he couldn’t find it in himself to mind. No matter how Peter looked at the events of the day, he had definitely won.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a completed story, not a prompt or up for adoption. I love feedback, but please don't ask for a sequel. I'm really happy about being able to write a cute, fluffy bunny this time.


End file.
